Known roller bearings consist essentially of an inner ring, a concentric outer ring, and a plurality of supporting rollers arranged between these two rings. Such roller bearings are utilized for a variety of technical applications, particularly for supporting axles. The axle is generally connected to the inner ring, whereas the outer ring is attached to a housing or frame.
Known roller bearings avoid the friction between supporting rollers by arranging a cage loosely between the inner ring and the outer ring, the cage guiding each supporting roller separately. The friction between the supporting roller and the cage is not avoided by these roller bearings.
Other roller bearings avoid the friction between the roller parts by utilizing a flexible belt partially surrounding the supporting rollers and separator rollers. The main disadvantage of these roller bearings resides in the sensitive belt that is subjected to considerable bending deformations.
Another roller bearing has been described in the art which provides a pair of separating rollers between adjacent load rollers. Each pair of the separating rollers are held in position by a surrounding cage ring. This bearing has the disadvantage of a rather large number of elements since twice as many separating rollers have to be used as there are supporting rollers and at least as many cage rings have to be used as there are supporting rollers.